Protection of Workers’ Rights in Bankruptcy Proceeding in Serbian and Western Balkans Legislation

The protection of workers’ rights in bankruptcy proceedings is a matter of supreme importance in every country. Comparing national laws, one could conclude that the predominant solution is to grant workers the position of privileged creditors. In Serbia, workers are protected by means of two laws: the Labour Law, which is the lex generalis for this area, and the Bankruptcy Law, which has the role of lex specialis. In addition to protection during bankruptcy proceedings before commercial courts, workers can appeal to the state’s national guarantee institution, namely, the Solidarity Fund. Serbia is, therefore, among the countries which employ a mixed – protectionist system. By analysing the legal solutions related to these issues, the authors want to determine the correlation between national legal solutions and those at the European Union level, and to consider the problems in bringing these claims in legal practice. They have also reviewed the current legislation in some Western Balkans countries including Croatia as a member of the EU, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, which has candidate status akin to Serbia. The authors conclude that Serbian law has a modern, hybrid approach in securing the rights of workers in bankruptcy proceedings, but that there is room for improving regulations in this area. This could be achieved by, inter alia, increasing the volume of claims guaranteed to workers, restricting the reasons for initiating bankruptcy proceedings, making preliminary payments to workers in the initial stages of the proceedings, and keeping court records on the percentage of workers’ claims being realised in bankruptcy proceedings.